Child porn investigation leads to Monett man

Wednesday, August 1, 2012By Melanie Roberts

A child pornography investigation that started in Germany three years ago has led to the arrest of a Monett man.

Donald Rise, 56, was arrested after law enforcement officials traced the downloaded images from a website in Germany through the Internet IP address to his computer, located in his home in the 400 block of Cale Street.

German authorities received information that a website, operated by a German citizen, had been hacked and was used to download child pornography. German officials seized files from the compromised website that included log files that dated between July 13 and July 26, 2009, and informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

According to the affidavit, filed in Federal District Court, Joplin Police Detective Larry Roller, Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, was at the scene and found hundreds of images of child porn on the computer.

The affidavit states that Rise admitted to downloading child pornography, including 329 files from the German website. Rise admitted to having between 30 to 50 images of child pornography on his computer depicting some of the children "in obvious distress."

According to Roller, Rise admitted to law enforcement officials that he has "an addiction to pornography" and said "he couldn't stop by himself."

Agents seized the computer for further forensic testing, along with two hand-written notes with what appeared to be pornographic websites on it.

Rise appeared before a federal magistrate on Monday in Springfield and was allowed to post bond. The judge appointed a federal public defender to represent Rise.

If convicted, Rise could face a prison sentence ranging from 5 to 20 years or spend five years to life on supervised release. He could also face fines up to $250,000.

The federal grand jury has not yet handed up an indictment to replace the charge filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office.